2026/02/10 by Pablo Rodríguez Herrero, Agustín de la Herrán Gascón, Victoria de Miguel Yubero +1
Business, Management and Accounting · Medicine · #Ethics and bioethics in healthcare #Law, Ethics, and AI Impact #Philosophy, Health, and Society
paper · pdf · doi:10.9781/rep.2026.400
crossref issued 2026/02/10 · crossref published 2026/02/10 · crossref published-online 2026/02/10 · openalex publication_date 2026/02/10 · crossref created 2026/02/10 · openalex created_date 2026/02/11 · crossref deposited 2026/06/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30
The recent COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a worldwide increase in fatalities and the overall visibility of death. Some academic disciplines have redefined their principles and paradigms in the wake of this crisis. This study enquires into whether pedagogy has made any changes in the area of education on death as a result of the pandemic experience. Thirteen leading Spanish academics from the education field, chosen according to their number of citations in Web of Science, were interviewed. A qualitative phenomenographic design was adopted, using scripted semi-structured interviews centred on participants’ views. The main conclusions were: (1) the pandemic had caused participants to make reflections that might lead to an enhanced awareness of the educational value of death and finitude; (2) their relationships with their students had become closer, gaining in understanding and empathy, and thus fostering more compassionate educational spaces; (3) participants had made no significant changes in their teaching or research in relation to death; and (4) they highlighted the importance for education of treating death as a normal topic and including it in school curricula. These findings indicate the need to provide opportunities to analyse the impact of the pandemic on pedagogy in the area of radical issues such as death, and with regard to developing education policies aimed at systematically including death in education.